United Arab Emirates

Royal Caribbean has announced the arrival of Serenade of the Seas in Dubai for the winter season of 2012-2013. Serenade of the Seas will offer passengers 17 itineraries, with departures every Monday for seven-night cruises in the UAE and Oman, from December 2012 to April 2013.

Serenade of the Seas replaced Brilliance of the Seas in the region and will offer guests new cruise experiences that explore the culture of the Middle East. You can choose a combination cruise and land tour such as the "Arabian Explorer", which combines a guided tour of four nights on the mainland to seven nights cruise onboard Serenade of the Seas. The stages of the cruise-tours are Dubai, Al Ain and Ras Al Khaimah. With Royal Caribbean cruise-tour guests are escorted and accompanied by tour guides and all transfers included in the price, the transportation and hotel accommodation with breakfast.

The seven night cruise Serenade of the Seas also makes a stop in Fujairah and Abu Dhabi in the UAE, with overnight in Muscat, Oman, Dubai and, at the conclusion of the cruise.

Guests can also choose a 15-night cruise in the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, departing January 14, 2013 from Malaga, Spain to Dubai, another alternative is the 15-night cruise from Barcelona to Dubai, April 15, 2013.

After Royal Caribbean refurbishes Brilliance of the Seas in the spring of 2013, it plans on sending her to the United Kingdom later that year.

Brilliance of the Seas will offer eight 12-night cruises to Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea out of Harwich, England starting May 15, 2013. These voyages will include stops at Copenhagen; Stockholm; Helsinki; Talinn, Estonia; Gothenburg, Sweden; and an overnight in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Brilliance of the Seas also will operate a single 11-night Norwegian Fjords and Iceland itinerary departing July 27, 2013 that will call at Bergen and Geiranger, Norway; Lerwick/Shetland, Scotland; Klaksvik, Faroe Islands; and Reykjavik, Iceland (for an overnight stop). The ship will be based in Harwich through Aug. 31, 2013, when it will depart for Boston on a 15-night itinerary that will include calls at Le Havre, France; Portland, Dorset, U.K.; Cork (Cobh) and Dublin, Ireland; Klaksvik; and Reykjavik.

Brilliance of the Seas is scheduled to spend the summer 2012 sailing to Northern Europe out of Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

Royal Caribbean is trying to convince the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to introduce a special visa allowing passengers more than one entry to the country.

Royal Caribbean claims that the cost of having to buy several single-entry visas to sail to destinations in the UAE is hampering the growth of the cruise industry in the country.

The way things are set right now, tourists from most countries must purchase single-entry visas to enter the UAE. This means cruise passengers through the Persian Gulf each have to buy up to three visas at a cost of $225 for all three. This means a family of four would have to pay about $900.

A Royal Caribbean regional director Helen Beck sees this extra cost as inhibiting cruise growth in the UAE, "It's a challenge - it's an inhibitor to sales. It's a federal issue and at some point it will be resolved because the different authorities will all understand the impact it's having and the block it's having on growing. The Russian market, China, those very large emerging markets that are required to get the single-entry visas for entering the UAE, that's a huge chunk of the world."

The UAE has become increasingly more popular with cruise line guests with the UAE expecting to draw 120 cruise ships with about 425,000 passengers this year. By 2015, that number will grow to 180 ships and over 625,000 passengers.

Royal Caribbean is considering a new hub in the United Arab Emirates. Royal Caribbean Senior Vice President Michael Bayley hinted at the possibility of a new hub in the country.

During the maiden docking of Brilliance of the Seas in Dubai, Royal Caribbean revealed plans ready for a Dubai-Mumbai cruise starting in 2011 .

Hamad Mohamed bin Mejren, Executive Director, Business Tourism at the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, said that Brilliance of the Seas' seven night sailings would include Dubai to Muscat, Fujairah, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain. These stops are among the most popular with tourists.

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